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Public Statement 10.9.2019

School officials at Sterling Public Schools have been aware for several weeks of rumors circulating among our school community that a student made statements that could be interpreted as threatening. School district staff investigated these rumors thoroughly and repeatedly. We also convened our threat assessment team, which carefully reviewed all available information and ultimately concluded that the rumors were not factual.

Over the next several weeks, the rumors persisted, which resulted in additional investigation by the school district and local law enforcement. Out of an abundance of caution, school officials also reached out to the Nebraska Department of Education’s State Security to ensure that we have taken every step appropriate to keep our students safe. At this time, the district has not received any information that would lead us to conclude that a credible threat existed.

Please reinforce with your students that the issue of threatening statements is not a matter to be taken lightly. Any student who feels that he or she is not safe or that one of the peers is not safe should talk about the issue directly with a member of the administration at school immediately. By the same token, false reports or exaggeration about threatening statements are also unacceptable.

We also want to remind the adults in our school community about how important it is to model the kind of behavior we expect from our students. We expect every member of the Sterling school community to practice kindness and tolerance. If you feel that your student is unsafe, please contact us immediately. We want you to know that we take the safety of our students very seriously, even if we cannot always share all of the details of student situations with patrons. We also want to be careful not to use school safety as an excuse to say untrue and hurtful things about individual students.

We want to thank our students, staff, parents, law enforcement, and community members for your continued support of our school. Please feel free to contact me or any other member of the Sterling Schools administrative team if you have any questions or concerns.